Mars Hill Church

Okay.

So he blew up Mars Hill and all the elders at Mars Hill said that he had to go through this big restoration process and repentance process.

And instead of doing any of it, he moved his family down to Arizona and started a new church.

Yeah.

I actually think that's offensive and cruel to people who are in actual cults or who like they were children.

Like if you were a kid, you get to say it.

But like if you were an adult who post Mars Hill, we're like, give me some of that good slurp slurp soup.

Like that's on you.

You can watch Ezekiel 34 play out in our own time.

In August 2014, 21 former pastors of Mars Hill Church in Seattle filed formal charges against their senior pastor, describing a culture of intimidation and control.

Within months, the church, which had grown to around 15,000 people across several states, had dissolved.

Thousands of those people didn't move to another church.

It was a podcast by Christianity Today, if I remember right.

It was by Christianity Today, and I can't remember how I got my hands on it, but it was called The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Church.

And it's a podcast that takes a deep dive into the spectacular implosion of the ministry of Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church.

And for those of you that don't know, Mars Hill Church used to be like this bright, shining place.

I don't know, lighthouse, for lack of a better term, for the Reformed Church in that this was Mark Driscoll being the pastor.

This is a church that was preaching strong doctrine, and they were reaching Seattle with it.

Today, we have a conversation to do just that.

A little over five years ago, a podcast documentary series called The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill was released.

And I don't think anybody was expecting just how much resonance would be found for this podcast.

I thought initially when it came out, this is going to be really, really interesting.

interesting and important for those of us who understand this particular subset of American Christianity.

I was stunned by how many people had never heard of Mark Driscoll, had never heard of Mars Hill, had never heard of this particular church planting movement.

but who were captivated by this series.

And one of the reasons why is because it, through the lens of something really specific, got at something that is far more universal than I think we want to admit.

Right.

Or you have, over a decade ago when Mark Driscoll was at Mars Hill, there was, he was preaching an hour-

60-plus minute sermon

... and 15-minute sermons-

I mean, if you listen to deconstruction stories or you read them or you listen to interviews, it's fascinating.

There was one, uh, you know, that Mike Cosper did, um, [lip smack] when he did that series on Mars Hill and, like, the decline of Mark Driscoll and all this.

It was, like, a few years ago.

He, uh, he had this episode where he interviews that Joshua something or other who wrote "I Kissed Dating Goodbye," like-

So you can see why that was claimed to be the case.

I remember one of the rebellions against this was the Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill kind of context, where actually you had this kick against feminized church with the idea of being this masculine, hard...

There were lots of beards, there was lots of kind of coarseness went on, lots of kind of signs of masculinity that really were actually just the cultural characterization that we've talked about in terms of negative masculinity, but put in a church context.

And so the way to deal with this issue, to me, I think we've got, again, you go back to the scriptures, okay? We're neither called to follow the culture or the church culture.

Right.

Um, and so they made a big deal about there is some kind of revival happening in Seattle, this most super liberal city, but this church called Mars Hill was growing.

Yeah.

Right.